Gabe Fleisher Makes His 2026 Midterm Predictions

0:00Hello again, everybody. Carlo here. We dropped a long podcast episode earlier this week, a conversation with my good friend, Gabe Fleischer, who is a political journalist. and the author of the great political substack, Wake Up to Politics. We had a very long conversation. So the stuff that you heard was our discussion about the aftermath of the Maduro operation in Venezuela. But we also talked about other domestic political issues from Tim Walsh deciding to hang it up in Minnesota to what to make of the next step in the Epstein files, as well as our predictions for the midterms and big storylines to watch in politics this year.

0:35So please enjoy the rest of that conversation with Gabe Fleischer now. This country was stone cold dead. So some other news here. We're coming on the air. This is Monday afternoon. Tim Walsh just dropped out of the governor's race in Minnesota. I got to be honest. I have not been. I mean, I've been following this story, but I have not been on top of it over the last couple of days because of everything else. What why? What's your take here? Is he leaving because of this controversy and the scandal surrounding the, you know, the fraudulent, the Medicaid fraud in among the smaller community? Is that what it's about?

1:06It's hard to come up with any other explanation. I mean, he announced, I think, just this past summer that he was running for a third term, I believe an unprecedented third term among governors. And so, you know, anytime a politician announces they're running for something and then doesn't a few months later, you know, there's obviously, you know, I don't think it's just, you know, family reasons or because he was tired of the job. If you wanted to kind of move on, if that was the case, he would have said that this summer. So I think the only kind of explanation that stands to reason is exactly what you said, this kind of fraud scandal that's really kind of blossomed and kind of, you know, metastasized and becoming even bigger, even though it's kind of been percolating in the air for months, I think even years since the first reports of it, but has really kind of come to much more closer to the forefront of the national scene in the last few months.

1:49I think that's pretty clearly the reason why. And reportedly, it seems like we might see Amy Klobuchar kind of move over from the Senate and kind of become governor. And I do think, you know, it's yeah, I think probably personally, perhaps there we still there's a lot more to learn of what he you know, what he knew of the scandal or kind of what his kind of ties to it might be that were reasons for him to drop out or perhaps more just for the party. you know I think not that probably a race against Mike Lindell I think he would have beat Mike Lindell these allegations notwithstanding would not have been yeah that would not be the strongest Republican nominee but you know in a state where the state legislature is a little bit more tightly divided than you might think considering the state's kind of national political leanings I believe it's a exactly tied state house and so you know for those reasons you'd much rather have kind of a top of the ticket who's you know has no kind of connection to scandal and you would think Cloakshire would be a much stronger candidate who would be able to kind of rise in tide.

2:42They'd be able to lift a lot more kind of state legislative votes. So perhaps you're kind of for the good of the party. Maybe she told him or he decided to kind of. Yeah, there's definitely more. There's more to this story that is apparent, which I'm sure we will find out in the days and weeks ahead. And I'm sure you'll do some more reporting on it. But yeah, as you said, politicians, incumbent politicians don't just say they're not going to run for office again without something going on. So we'll bookmark that one for the future. What about Epstein? Are we done with Jeffrey Epstein? Is this the year that we can finally put this guy in a rearview mirror or will he come back from the grave to haunt us until the day we die?

3:22I'm not sure. I mean, I think clearly there are – obviously the deadline has kind of at this point long passed from the Epstein Files Transparency Act for the administration to release the remaining files. From what we've seen so far, and obviously there are some questions about redactions and such, they're clearly, if Democrats were hoping there'd be some big bombshell to come out of these files, what we've seen so far, they've been sorely disappointed. There's been nothing to kind of give this story on more staying power or to tie it to Trump and the way they've hoped. That said, I think reportedly there's still thousands, maybe tens of thousands of files left.

3:54So I think probably a lot of it will depend on, you know, whether these, you know, what is in those files. And if they don't come out, you'll see, I think, just the same amount of pressure that was on the administration for the last year. But releasing the files, if now that there's an act of Congress compelling them to release the files and they don't, you'll see the same amount of pressure. And you'll see kind of Democrats and even some Republicans kind of using that as kind of this battering ram with which to attack the administration not complying with that law. So I think a lot of it just depends on what's in there.

4:23If this was the last file to be released and we don't see anything else, then I would agree with you that this is probably done. But but I just think we can't know because it seems like there's a lot more material out there I mean one thing that is interesting to me and I've always been someone you know my my just feeling going into this And I could be proven wrong is that you know if there was something So we would have known Donald Trump in those files. We would know about it And that's always been my take. Yeah, and that's always been my feeling and yet It's also been somewhat undercut but the idea that clearly Donald Trump did not want these files So like I'm not someone who necessarily thinks there was something so huge in them.

4:58But then there is the question of why did he work so hard to prevent them from coming out? And I still don't think with what we've seen so far, we still have an answer to that because nothing that's come out so far would really explain the kind of ferocity with which he kind of threw his weight behind the effort not to release the files. So clearly not clearly, but that does make you wonder whether there is something more there, whether there's more to see. And I think, you know, regardless, I could see this being something that figures into the midterm conversation, not as like the Democrats' main selling point, but I think there's kind of a broader story that can be drawn here, connecting a few of the things we've talked about today.

5:33Well, you know, if you think about why did Donald Trump win the presidency in 2024, you know, I think it was, you know, obviously, you know, dissatisfaction with the economy, dissatisfaction with foreign policy, you know, a kind of dissatisfaction with elites, with the elite establishment. I think you can kind of tie all these things together. You know, Epstein, you know, you know, Epstein, a lot of Trump supporters did care a lot about the Epstein files. And it does kind of wrap really neatly into their skepticism of the American elite of the business elite, which Trump really has allied himself with at a lot of points in this administration.

6:04And you kind of do see a democratic message forming that really kind of try, you know, takes the promises that that Trump said he would do in 2024 and really tries to make the point, you know, did not lower prices like he said he would, did not keep us out of foreign wars like he said he would and has not kind of and has cozied up to elites, including with the Epstein files, as he said he wouldn't. And so I could see it becoming part of that broader narrative in the midterms. So I don't know that. That's a good point. No, that's a very good point. And it just makes me think, you know, Trump was hoisted on his own petard with the Epstein stuff, right?

6:36Like he campaigned explicitly on revealing this, you know, network of like pedophile Democrats behind Epstein. It turns out that he was actually friends with this guy going back decades, which we kind of already knew. So, yeah. Anyway, I yeah, I think that, you know, he he brought this upon himself from a from a political perspective. Let's talk about the midterms for a second. I don't want to put you on the spot with predictions, but I also kind of do. What where's your head? Where do you what do you think is going to happen if things are if the election were held tomorrow? Yeah, let's do it that way.

7:10How does it go down? Yeah, I mean, I think the Democrats certainly take back the House. I mean, they only need to win, you know, for I think that's foregone conclusion that I do. I mean, I think, you know, the again, you just look at if you knew nothing about how this year had gone. And I would not say the year has gone particularly well for Donald Trump and the Republicans. But if you literally knew nothing about how it went, you would still just look at the historical trends. You would know that it has been only two midterms in the post-World War Two era. You're going back 70 years that a president's party has picked up House seats and not lost them in the midterms and know that the average is that the party out of power takes up about 15, 20 seats in the House, which is more than enough.

7:49The Democrats would take back a majority considering Republicans have such a slim majority now. If that was all you knew, you would just say the Democrats – it is almost impossible to imagine they can't put together the five seats they need to the majority. So I think Democrats definitely would back the House. Again, if I had to predict right now, I do not think they will take back the Senate, maybe pick up ground there. I think Susan Collins could be vulnerable. It is a tough map for them. They do have some, obviously, prime recruits. I think Susan Collins could be vulnerable, although obviously it's unclear who should be going up against.

8:19Roy Cooper is obviously the best the Democrats could hope for in North Carolina. So that could be another pickup for them. But just like in the House, they only need a few seats to take back the majority. but in the Senate, I mean, it's fewer seats, but relative to the size of the Senate, it's a much harder climb to imagine kind of the math there to how you can kind of get them. They're right now at 47 seats. So maybe everything goes right. They protect their seats in Michigan, in Georgia, pick up North Carolina, pick up Maine, that brings you to 49 seats. That extra two to get to 51, I mean, suddenly you're looking at Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska, Kansas, this.

8:57You know, states where is it possible that one of them, you know, really leads to some miraculous upset for Democrats? It's possible with the right candidates, with the right kind of year, if Trump remains pretty unpopular, if the economy does even worse. But to think of all of that kind of happening all at once is kind of a perfect storm strikes me, again, if the electoral today is pretty unlikely. But just because, you know, the pickup opportunities they have after those first two are not states where Democrats have performed well recently. But obviously, you know, things, surprises could happen.

9:27Yeah, no, it seems to me like to win the Senate, we would have to be in a serious recession, I think. And it's just a total bloodbath for Republicans. I more or less agree with where you're at on that. Okay, before we let you go, Gabe, you did a piece that I originally wanted to ask you about today. We got sidetracked with all of the news. I hate when that happens. I hate when the news, you know, makes us change our plans. The piece that you wrote was about your 13 big questions for the year ahead. But I don't want you to go through all three of all 13, but I do want you to give me the three areas that you're watching this year where you think there's going to be big news.

10:03Yeah, well, you already mentioned the economy. I mean, you said, you know, that the thing that could lead you from kind of a blue, you know, maybe ripple to kind of a blue wave would be the economy. So I would agree with with that one. I think, you know, so far, you know, to go back to what we've been talking about this whole time of, you know, Trump position himself against the experts. And there are cases where Trump is right and the experts are wrong. So far, although consumer sentiment is incredibly low, the inflation numbers certainly have not reflected the sort of huge inflation spike that the experts said would follow the Liberation Day tariffs.

10:33Now, of course, a lot of those tariffs have been kind of rolled back and exceptions and stuff. So there's asterisks, but we haven't yet seen the sort of inflation spike that was warned about. But if we do, that would obviously be incredibly concerning for Republicans. So I think that's one. I'm watching very close to the Supreme Court. I think one of the stories of 2025 was kind of the Supreme Court kind of allowing a lot of – or at least this was the narrative that the Supreme Court had allowed a lot of Trump's actions to kind of pass. I do think, though, that has been with a pretty limited pool of decisions, most of which were really narrowly about kind of Trump's power over the executive branch, which is something we already knew that a lot of the conservative justices are already on the same page with Trump about.

11:13This next year, we have a lot, many more really complicated and thorny questions. Any day now, we'll be hearing the court's decision on tariffs. Later this month, they will be hearing arguments on whether he can fire a Fed governor, Lisa Cook. Then further down in the year, we'll hear arguments on birthright citizenship. I would not be surprised if the three cases I just, you know, named are 0 for 3 for President Trump. And if that's the case, you know, I think that story of the Supreme Court's relationship with Trump starts to look very different if, you know, some of those huge of his signature policies like the tariffs, they suddenly start ruling against.

11:50We already just saw at the end of the year the Supreme Court rule against his efforts, at least temporarily, rule against his efforts to place National Guard troops in Chicago. So we'll be watching that very closely. I think there's a lot of decisions that could really confound the kind of existing narrative about how the Supreme Court is sanctioning or not Trump's efforts of power. And then I think the last thing I'll say is I put one in there about kind of the movements within conservative media and some of the squabbles we've seen within conservative media. I'm watching this particularly closely because I do think there are so many divides, not just in terms of the media on the right wing, but just within the Republican coalition that Donald Trump has really kind of successfully papered over.

12:27Certainly this year has expressed enormous amount of power over the Republican Party and has kind of really managed to quell almost all dissent, as we've said. But, you know, you just take what happened in Venezuela this weekend. You know, Donald Trump campaigned as a non-interventionist now kind of campaign now kind of being president as kind of more of kind of a globalist, more of a neocon. and so those contradictions are there and no one really seems to be complaining about that much but the non-interventionists within the Republican Party remain and they're keeping holding their fighter for now but the minute Trump is away from the scene or starts looking more like a lame duck which I do think will happen after the 2026 midterms maybe this is the very end of the year but you know we're going to start seeing more and more Republicans kind of trying to think through what a post-Trump future looks like and these squabbles that you would expect would maybe happen after the capture of Maduro in Venezuela but are kind of being quieted But eventually we'll start to break out and we'll start to see, you know, I think the Vances of the world and the Rubius of the world.

13:26Maybe there will be a little bit more clashing, even though, as I said, they've been a united front so far. But they do have very different philosophies. And which one of those has more kind of power, you know, in a post-Trump world where under Trump, kind of all these things have kind of been swept under the rug. but you'll be watching very kind of little signs of you know who's allying closely with Tucker Carlson you know what is Ted Cruz doing who's kind of been trying to express more of kind of a maybe pre-Trump Republicanism Josh Hawley I think will be very interesting to watch as well there's MTG will not be in Congress but you know maybe she'll start a podcast or something I don't expect her to kind of just float away and I think a lot of these questions where Trump has kind of quelled dissent I'm very curious to see what Republicans what kind of maybe quiet dissent kind of emerges or just what the kind of differences emerge within the party in the next year.

14:10Yeah. No, I totally agree. And we've talked about it here before, but, you know, I think people underestimate the degree to which Charlie Kirk was really keeping that sort of mega media, you know, in place kind of right toeing the line. And I think, you know, since his assassination, I think you're really just seeing all of these, you know, factions come out of nowhere and trying to take the mantle forward. And it will be an interesting dynamic to watch in the year ahead. Gabe Fleischer, wake up to politics.com. I believe that is the URL to get your sub stack. Is that right? That is correct. Excellent.

14:44We'll put that in the description. Is there anywhere else people can can follow you on X or any of the socials? Politics.com on sub stack. And then I wake up number two politics on X. Who took number one? Oh, I see. Wake up to. Got it. You got it. Gabe, a pleasure, man. Really good stuff. Appreciate it. Great reporting. Hopefully we can get you back soon. I would love it. Great talking to you. Really appreciate it.